The Signs in Relationship

People often ask, "If I'm a Cancer (Scorpio, Aries etc.), what are the best Sun signs for relationship and partnership?" Compatibility or incompatibility between the elements or energies of the signs is a basic principle of astrology.

But for a relationship to work, it is not just Sun/Sun contacts that are important, but the total fit between your chart and his -- not to mention all the extra-astrological factors such as culture, background, values, interests, age, degree of willingness to be in a relationship. This total fit is at best a balanced mix of both compatible and incompatible energies, so if your suns happen to be incompatible, that may be fine for you but you will especially need a good resonance between your Sun and his Moon (or vice versa) or between your Moons.

The fiery energy of Aries pushes itself forcefully forward projecting itself in new and exciting directions, restless, youthful, alive, spontaneous and eager. In relationship, the sign is unconstrained, ingenuously direct, and frank. But the Arian self-willed assertiveness and insensitivity can sometimes grate, for this is an individualistic sign most suited for immediate action and pioneering leadership. It's not necessarily at home in the empathic give and take of close relationship. Best with relationships that stimulate and excite, that allow personal freedom of expression and choice of ever new goals and activities, it prefers to share in action and adventure, and above all, to not get bogged down in the need for compromise. Lacking that larger awareness of situational appropriateness, an important life lesson for Aries is to become more aware of the larger gestalt without losing its drive, enthusiasm and instinctual spontaneity, or becoming excessively self-conscious and self inhibiting.

With the fire signs: there is a mutual stimulation of action, excitement and self expression. Aries can stimulate Leo to the action and forceful effort required to realize its ambitions; can concentrate and focus the will of wandering Sagittarius to immediate and effective action in the here and now. In turn, Leo can teach impulsive and sometimes wasteful Aries a certain sustained and self controlled expression of creative energy, while Sagittarius can open Aries to a larger visionary picture.

Aries with the air signs brings fire's intuitive vision, ardour and aspiration together with air's reason, social connectedness, and cool considered objectivity. Aries can inspire the often scattered Gemini to creative action; can teach the overly diplomatic Libra to be less accommodating and compromising; can help idealistic Aquarius get more in touch with its own instinctual needs and drives - independent of the group. On the other hand, Gemini can awaken the thinking and verbal expression of the intuitive Aries; Libra can teach uncultivated Aries more social self restraint and an awareness of the other's needs, while Aquarius can open Aries beyond self centeredness to the larger social and cultural field within which it can usefully act.

Fire and water, that emotionally intense and moody combination, brings Aries together with the quieter and more receptively attuned Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces. Aries can bring cautious Cancer out of its self protective shyness; stimulate the complex and hidden Scorpio to a more direct and forthright way of being; and teach Pisces how to focus, set goals and assert itself toward those ends. In turn, Cancer can teach Aries a more nurturing and caring way of being. Scorpio can teach self restraint, inner depth and instinctual attunement to relationship's hidden undercurrents and subtleties; Pisces can awaken the 'river-pushing' Aries to an attunement to the Tao.

Fire and Earth is a combination which at best can really get things accomplished. Aries can encourage slow and steady Taurus to a more passionate action, can awaken overly considered Virgo to a more intuitive and instinctual way of acting, can teach responsible Capricorn an individualistic courage and self expression. On the other hand, Taurus grounds and steadies the impulsivity of Aries, Virgo teaches Aries to stop and attend to the necessary earthy details while Capricorn exhorts Aries to turn its energy to responsible and useful action.

Taurus. Steady, earthy, sensual, deliberate ~ these qualities characterize Taurus, who approaches relationship with hearty desire and firm commitment. People strong in Taurus, are instinctually grounded in the "real" world and bring their love of the beautiful things of life and their straightforward uncomplicated practicality to any relationship.

Needing to be productive, yet usually not the workaholics of the zodiac, Taureans have a capacity both for persistent work and for taking pure unhurried pleasure in the fruits of their labour. They're sensible and generally placid, if somewhat stubborn, with a fixed nature. With their lack of personal ambition or self aggrandizement, yet their dogged persistence around matters of survival, security and comfort that affects them and theirs, they provide a solid and stable physical and emotional ground in any partnership.

With the other earth signs, Taurus can get things done and enjoy the comforts of life, but may not be challenged to move beyond old ruts and narrow thinking. Taurus offers serious and workaholic Capricorn a more steady and relaxed approach to production and achievement; awakens cerebral Virgo to a more sensual enjoyment of the body, rather than making the body conform to the mind's standards. Conversely, socially responsible Capricorn can help Taurus widen the field and purpose of its contributions beyond the personal, while Virgo can encourage an understanding of the complexities of the earth plane beyond the black and white of Taurus' more personal approach.

With the Water signs, Taurus brings to maternal Cancer safe and secure emotional and domestic foundations; offers to emotional and intense Scorpio an anchor in the immediate here and now simplicity of nature; gives to Pisces a personal shape and container for its intangible, complex feelings and psychic impressions. On the other hand, sensitive Cancer opens the sympathetic and nurturing feelings of matter-of-fact Taurus; powerful and passionate Scorpio can awaken complacent Taurus to hidden and repressed dimensions; Pisces can soften and release Taurus from its rather self enclosing boundaries.

With the Air signs, Taurus can help focus and stabilize the complicated and elusive Gemini; can ground the idealizing yet compromising Libra in the reality of its own needs and commitments to its own personal viewpoint; can remind the socially idealistic and active Aquarius that the head is needing to stay tuned to the body, with its natural instincts and desires. But Gemini can urge Taurus out of mental and communicational ruts. Libra can teach social graces and interpersonal skills to the basic and individualistic Taurus. Aquarius can awaken rather blinkered Taurus to a more communal and global vision.

Now, Taurus and the fire signs: to impulsive Aries, Taurus teaches a steady and deliberate commitment to the task at hand; while to self important Leo, Taurus offers a direct simplicity and a joy in the creative act itself, rather than seeking accolades. Taurus helps the seeking Sagittarian to keep its feet on the ground as its vision opens to the sky. Complimentarily, Aries lights the fire of initiative to overcome the sometimes inertial Taurus. Leo encourages Taurus to bring its talents and accomplishments out into the world, while Sagittarius brings to this simple earth sign a sense of greater significance and meaning beyond personal security, productivity and pleasure.

Although Gemini is a sign of relationship ~ the need to establish connections hither and thither ~ this rather cool and mutable air sign is not known for its capacity to establish intimate, committed or emotionally rich personal relationships. Along with a need to connect with others to communicate ideas and information, to seek mental stimulation and enjoy an egalitarian sense of comradeship, Gemini needs its freedom to come and go as it pleases, wriggling free from what it might perceive as other peoples' agendas or attempts to pin it down. The stimulation of change and the new, a youthful vitality and curiosity, an avoidance of complicated emotional depth yet partly because of this, a tendency to become mentally entangled in its own complications as it seeks the whys, wherefores and meaning of things, Gemini performs a complicated yet skillful and graceful dance through life. Although Gemini is notoriously unable or unwilling to share its feelings (only what it thinks), that doesn't mean Gemini doesn't have its emotional problems which tend to be translated into an excessive and befuddled fretting and thinking, trying to figure out what would be better directly experienced and lived.

With the other air signs, Gemini enjoys that cool, friendly, yet emotionally detached connecting around ideas, activities, ideals, and general abstractions. To compromising Libra, Gemini can communicate that love of the idea unaffected by social considerations and adjustments, while to socially obsessed Aquarius, Gemini can teach the love of thinking and learning for its own sake prior to ideas being used for larger social movements and ideals. In turn, Libra can teach Gemini how to better communicate by stopping and attuning to the other. Aquarius can awaken Gemini to its social connectedness and responsibilities.

With fire, Gemini gives to simple and blunt Aries a cultural and mental richness, to pontificating Leo, a skillful lightness of being, and to generalizing Sagittarius a better grasp of the complexity of the details. At the same time, Aries can teach vacillating Gemini the effectiveness of decisive focus and action; Leo can demonstrate to scattered Gemini a firm centeredness in self; while Sagittarius can help Gemini find the forest when s/he is lost among the trees.

Gemini and the water signs, the most challenging of the combinations, means that emotionally out-of-touch Gemini gets directly challenged by Cancer to share feelings and to deeply commit him/herself, is compelled into an underworld depth beyond words by the entangling Scorpio, is welcomed by Pisces to open to emotional subtleties beyond mind. Yet Gemini can teach Cancer to verbally communicate its moods, can give to Scorpio an ability to better understand and express its hidden dimensions, can give the gift of the word to Pisces so it can poetically express its heartful human conectedness.

With earth, Gemini awakens the intellectual curiosity in the complacent Taurus, demonstrates a free play of mind to the pragmatically and conscientiously earth-bound Virgo, provides informational access and brilliance to the managerial Capricorn. In turn, Taurus brings a solid and practical grounding to Gemini's youthful avoidances. Virgo helps Gemini to apply his/her endless learning to developing skill and competence. Capricorn teaches Gemini to focus his/her mental and nervous vitality to the challenges of a larger purpose and responsible, committed participation in public life.

There is a natural and easy resonance between Cancer, a water sign and the other water signs, Pisces and Scorpio. Similarly, there's a natural flow between Cancer and the earth signs, Taurus, Virgo and Capricorn. But Cancer encounters a very different and contrasting sort of energy in the fire signs, Aries, Leo and Sagittarius as well as in the air signs, Gemini, Libra and Aquarius.

Let's focus on the Sun sign issues and see what Cancerian might need to look for. Cancers are essentially warm and loving, needing close intimacy, deep caring, sensitive exchanges of feeling, emotional security, roots and lots of nurturing behaviour going both ways. They can be very attached, fiercely loyal to family and loved ones. Relationship means home, family, roots, children, and extended family.

Both Water and Earth can naturally and deeply share these values in their own ways. With another water sign (Cancer, Pisces, Scorpio), Cancer will resonate on the sensitivity, caring and intimacy dimension, (unless he is rather elusive or blocked due to hyper-sensitivity and neurosis) but an excess of emotions, deep feelings and moods may sometimes undermine the clarity, direction, focus, and structure of the relationship. The practical and steady earth signs (Taurus, Virgo, Capricorn) give to Cancer a sense of security, safety and foundation -- a shape or structure for feelings and emotions, while at the same time Cancer can awaken Earth to his sensitive side, his feeling nature which is rather held under control.

The fire signs, Aries, Leo, and Sagittarius, with their strong sense of self, their need for freedom, self expression, future visions, excitement will not especially feed this water sign's more quiet, home loving Cancerian nature. Sometimes they may experience Cancer's sensitivity as constricting or cloying as the Cancerian may experience them as unavailable and insensitive. But Fire may inspire Cancer to be less shy and withdrawn, more visionary while Cancerian energy can gently urge him toward sensitivity and caring.

With the air signs, Gemini, Libra, and Aquarius there is a direct contrast between the Cancerian intensely personal and subjective feelings, attachments and instincts and their airy words, objectifying reasons, and lofty ideals. Air distrusts feelings and tends to see water as weak and irrational. Water experiences air as cold and abstract, trying to reason away what water is feeling. Yet the potential is for air to learn to communicate his deeper feelings and for Cancer to put feelings and needs into words through more objective self awareness.

For successful relationship and partnership it isn't just a matter of finding someone with a compatible chart with our own, but also how well each of us as individuals is manifesting our potential and living authentically from our basic values. Focusing on the Sun signs can still give us some useful information that can guide us toward optimal functioning.

If I am a Leo, personal pride and the need to be respected are compelling life issues. These traits can manifest at an egocentric, self involved, emotionally insecure and rather primitive level that would negatively impact on any relationship - regardless of chart compatibility. It is rather silly to say; "You are a Leo who likes to be the centre of attention, to be listened to and adored, to hold the partner's attention so you need to find someone who will not compete for the centre stage and who will enjoy supporting you to shine while s/he works behind the scenes etc." The point is, you need to grow up! Although growing up is a necessity for each of us, the details -- the central issues --- will look different according to our temperaments. The need to shine, to be more than mediocre, to be respected which motivates Leo cannot be repressed or made wrong but rather needs to be expressed in a mature way.

A mature Leo who has found his/her natural calling and optimum mode of self expression will naturally command respect, and exude confidence and personal pride. Such traits will naturally appeal to certain persons more than others depending on their temperaments -- this is where energy compatability enters into the picture.

Leo being a fire sign -- a strong willed and expressive energy that takes up space and can be experienced by some as demanding and others as exciting and inspiring (when operating positively) -- is generally compatible with the other fire signs, Aries and Sagittarius ( and Leo of course -- not personally recommended, but give it a try by all means!) With fire/fire both need to be free to express themselves and realize visions and future possibilities in a dynamic and exciting environment -- and remember, excitement can be physical and active or more artistic, mental or spiritual. But watch out, sparks can fly in a clash of wills here.

With fire/air, which is also a compatible combination -- Leo with Gemini, Libra or Aquarius -- intuition, vision, intensity, and aspiration inspire air to loftier thoughts and the achievement of its ideals while air encourages more objectivity and social concern beyond the natural subjectivity and self concern of Leo.

Fire and earth -- Leo with Taurus, Virgo or Capricorn -- combines creative aliveness, vision and excitement with what is sometimes experienced by fire as Earth's dull, unimaginative, and stultifying mundanity. Yet on the positive side earth offers a practical groundedness that gives Leo's aspirations a focus and a realistic form of concrete expression. Leo can awaken earth's sometimes latent imagination, encouraging a less mundane perspective, as well as inspiring earth to personal creativity and self expression.

Leo with the water signs -- Cancer, Scorpio or Pisces -- brings Leo's emotional, inspirational and willful intensity up against the responsive feelings and attunements of water -- a challenge. Leo can be experienced by water as running roughshod over feelings and can, at best, learn sensitivity to the needs of others. At the same time, our fire sign can be an inspiration to water's confidence, will and assertion.

To be in the world is to be in relationship. Whether as friend, colleague, manager, workmate, parent, child or spouse, we are called on to meet constant challenges and learn ever deepening life lessons. Of course, the most foundational relationship for society is the family, and in our time the spousal relationship is undergoing profound upheaval. From the largest and most hopeful perspective, we can say that we are experiencing evolutionary growing pains as we move from the patriarchy of the last few thousand years to a more just gender and racially egalitarian society.

The psychological and spiritual challenge is enormous as we try to come together, to know and affirm each other as loving equals without many of the guiding rules, definitions and expectations of tradition and convention, especially since we need to preserve what is valuable in the old as we forge new and more deeply workable modes of responsible commitment. When two people meet within this new value perspective with the mutual intention of honesty, sharing, communication, equality, caring and non-dominance, compatibility factors become secondary -- though human chemistry is always at play. Rather than looking to astrology as an answer to the immense challenges of partnership in the contemporary world, it is from an ever deepening awareness of the larger picture that we need to approach this useful self knowledge and relationship tool.

The sun sign Virgo brings into any relationship practicality, conscientiousness, a concern with mundane and personal details, a critical and analytical mind and exacting standards. The attitude of responsibility and service -- needing to do the 'right thing' -- is devoid of self aggrandizement or power motives, yet can sometimes be experienced as strongly controlling and rather stifling.

Virgo meshes naturally with the other earth signs bringing a more introspective self control and awareness of basic social factors to Taurus's more instinctual and sensual individualism and a humble attitude of service to Capricorn's more ambitious managerial and high achiever mentality. Yet Capricorn can guide Virgo beyond its obsession with details to a more self confident mastery of the larger picture while Taurus can teach overly serious Virgo how to relax and enjoy the fruits of its labour.

With the water signs, Cancer, Pisces and Scorpio, there is the natural complementary resonance of water and earth, where water provides the sensitivity and relational responsiveness that earth needs to learn, while earth provides the grounded practicality and security needed by water. Pisces most deeply challenges Virgo to open to more imaginative and ineffable levels. Cancer helps Virgo expand through personal love and caring, while Scorpio encourages Virgo toward an attunement to the complex undercurrents of human emotion that defy the categories of reason and propriety.

With the fire signs -- Virgo offers Leo a humbling self knowledge and simplicity, encourages in Sagittarius less grandiosity and a grounding of vision in the realistic details, while affecting a change in Aries' unthinking impulsivity and willful naivete. The fire signs will tend to awaken vision, self expression and spontaneity in the logistically obsessed and over-orderly Virgo.

Cerebral yet pragmatic Virgo offers a practicality to the Air signs' often abstract or overly idealistic mind. Libra teaches Virgo a more personable and appreciative approach to others. Aquarius offers a larger communal and global idealist perspective while Gemini lends Virgo a greater intellectual openeness and flexibility. Virgo can teach Gemini commitment, responsibility and a useful application of ideas; can awaken in rather romantic and accomodating Libra a more discriminating awareness of the other. And Virgo can remind Aquarius of those pesky bottom line realities that need to be handled before any social ideals can be realized.

We live in a transitional age, perhaps comparable to those critical times that witnessed the birth of agriculture, the city state and the industrial age -- those periods in history where evolutionary forces, wreak havoc with the existing order on social, political, economic, relational, psychological, and spiritual levels. Yet these seemingly destructive forces bring about deeply constructive adaptive changes in our ways of thinking and doing things.

These days, computers, robotics, downsizing and the global market demand a radical restructuring of society and the economy within a new "eco-systemic paradigm". At the same time, a recognition of human rights on a global level, the working toward an ending of sexism and racism and the crumbling of outmoded religious frameworks, is radically redefining the traditional structures and values of relationship and the family.

The "new paradigm" of relationship and partnership concerns the meeting of equal and self responsible 'persons' whose love for each other is expressed as the commitment to one another's personal growth and flowering. Rather than the traditional arena defined by stifling social expectations, gender roles, unconscious and romantically idealized projections, self-centered passions, and emotional dependencies, a new and potentially more satisfying and workable 'partnership game' is being called for. Here, relationship becomes the mutually agreed on context or field within which the individuals feel free to open up, to reveal, to unfold, without demanding the other take on or 'solve' their problems. Very much individuals, yet individuals very much in relationship -- not isolated egos using relationship for their own ends or going off and doing their own thing.

Libra is the sign most consciously concerned with relationship, bringing to it high ideals and determined efforts toward creating beauty, harmony, cooperation and refinement. At its highest, Libra symbolizes the communion of two equal yet unique persons who are fully consecrated to the relationship and to each other's mutual flowering.

With the other air signs, Libra enjoys a natural cultural and mental compatibility offering the friendly, yet rather individualistic Aquarius and the rather uncommitted and cerebral Gemini a more personally connected, relationally committed, personable, and interdependent perspective. In turn, Aquarius can orient Libra to a larger social horizon in which to express its idealism; Gemini can teach a loyalty to the pure idea prior to the need to incorporate, for social reasons, the other's perspective.

Libra gives cultural and mental form and substance to the active and dynamic creativity of fire. Libra can teach Leo a gracious awareness of the other in his or her own right; can show Sagittarius how to ground visions and far reaching enthusiasms in the relational here and now; can awaken in Aries a capacity to attune to the other's needs and to restrain the self. In turn, Leo encourages Libra to stronger self esteem, belief in oneself and the courage of self expression. Sagittarius, awakens in Libra a view of the greater meaning and purpose of any relationship; Aries reminds the Libra not to accommodate and compromise her own needs out of existence.

Libran air together with the water signs shows us the familiar clash between ideas and feelings, between words and instincts. Each in their own way, Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces draw idealistic Libra into the realm of feelings and emotions, that inner dimension which Libra may avoid yet needs to attune to in order to realize the harmony and love that it seeks. Libra can teach the water signs to better articulate and communicate what they are feeling.

With earth we see the contrast of the personal, cultural and ideal with the practical and mundane. Capricorn, Taurus and Virgo may bring Libra to earth with a bit of a clunk, yet they can teach Libra to ground its ideals in the more realistic and concrete realities that define the situation, while Libra brings its grace, elegance, responsiveness, social finesse and skill to the no-nonsense, matter-of-fact earth signs.

The signs of the zodiac can be understood as dimensions of life that are relevant to all of us regardless of where our planets fall. In terms of relationship and partnership, Cancer symbolizes the caring and intimacy dimension ~~ relationship as a safe and loving place to nurture partners and children, to trust, to share one's deeper feelings. Leo expresses the dimension of mutual respect, mutual encouraging of self esteem and creative self expression, self actualization and flowering through relationship. Virgo pictures steadfast self-responsibility and its concrete expression through service, through competent handling of the multitudinous details and logistics of relational and family life. Libra symbolizes the dimension of attunement and sensitivity to the other which is necessary for any considerate, cooperative, fair and gracious partnership.

Scorpio, the current sun sign, evokes the underlying dimensions of human emotion that provide the attractions and passions, the excitement and drama of relationship ~~ yet that which is always in danger of falling into melodrama, the battle of the sexes, the power struggles that are the other face of love.

The mysterious, enigmatic, charismatic, and highly attuned Scorpio approaches relationships with the same totalizing intensity and ambivalent urge for fusion and autonomy that s/he approaches any life situation. With the other water signs there is a sharing of emotional dimensions, a trans-verbal way of resonating, responding and dancing that plumbs instinctual and creative depths, sources of deeply felt intuitive imagination of which many of us are out of touch. Scorpio can beckon the cautious Cancer beyond its carefully defined yet limiting boundary to participate in a more risky yet exhilarating human adventure; can guide Pisces to a creatively fulfilling exploration of its latent potentials. Cancer offers Scorpio a mutual commitment and a more protective, less destructive mode of expression of its powers, while Pisces can offer a less attached more compassionate mode of loving communion.

With earth, Taurus's direct simplicity and this-worldliness grounds the melodramatic passion of Scorpio. Virgo matches critical astuteness but does so with less sting and relational convolutions. Capricorn matches strength of will but teaches a direct and forthright control. In turn, Scorpio goads Taurus out of its blinkered complacency; manipulates Virgo out of its stodgy emotional control, challenges Capricorn to plumb its hidden depths to achieve its highest aims.

With air there is the old feeling/thinking tension. The elusive word dance of Gemini is discordant with keen Scorpionic perceptions yet Gemini can impress Scorpio with the need to articulate feelings that are normally held within. Libra exemplifies a diplomatic, fair and kind way of relating that can modify Scorpio's instinctual, sometimes spiteful reactivity. Aquarius can demonstrate an ability to rise above blind emotions and passions to realize more ideal and humanitarian modes of relating. In turn, Scorpio can bring depth and instinctual attunement to the cerebral and emotionally out-of-touch Gemini; can deepen the sometimes shallow and shadow-avoiding Libra; can help Aquarius get in touch with its instinctual reactivity and normal human drives.

When self-expressive fire meets Scorpio - water in its most powerful and intense mode - there can be a clash of styles, of wills, of emotion, yet a release of most powerful, imaginative creative effusion. Leo teaches suspicious and self protective Scorpio the daring to express and expose who s/he is. Sagittarius impresses on the self-censored Scorpio a greater sense of spontaneity, honesty and frankness. Aries demonstrates forthrightness and directness to Scorpio's complex subterfuge. To balance fire's ingenuousness and naiveté, Scorpio teaches the fire signs self restraint, inner depth and instinctual attunement to relationship's hidden undercurrents and subtleties.

Sagittarius needs a large space in which to express itself, actively, creatively, and socially. So
in terms of forming a one-to-one relationship and commitment with a Sagittarian, one must be
prepared to create and participate within that larger-than-life field, to share or at least to resonate
with their visions, enthusiasms, inspirations, hopes, goals, ideals and dreams. This sign is inspired
by the greater possibilities of things, moved by a need to gain a larger more expansive view, to
rise above ordinary earthly limitations, to explore distant horizons, to travel to foreign lands.

Enthusiastic, friendly, sociable, irrepressible, Sagittarius's attunement to the larger picture ~
artistically, philosophically, idealistically or adventurously ~ tends to preclude a grounding in the
here-and-now details or the subtle nuances of interpersonal exchanges.

With the other fire signs, excitement, enthusiasm, personal freedom, creative self expression
and adventure are the optimal effects of a mutual inspiration, although too much personal intensity
may call for restrained self awareness and more mutual sensitivity. Sagittarius can expand the
rather subjective and narrowly focused awareness of the Arian in action: can awaken the Leo to
its larger social confidence and expressive performance. In turn, Aries can provoke and inspire
Sagittarius to actively pursue its goals and dreams. Leo can stabilize the restless wandering
(mental or physical) of the mutable and sometimes scattered Sagittarian.

With the air signs, the verbalized ideas and ideals of air fan the flames of fire's creative
intuition, in turn inspiring air to greater understanding and self expression. Gemini will dance with Sagittarius, together weaving words and visions with Gemini providing the intricate details and
Sagittarius the larger pattern of meaning. Libra brings social grace, skill and personable
sensitivity to the well meaning though sometimes grandiose, exaggerating, and insensitively direct
Sagittarian. Aquarius marries its social vision and keenly-held principles to the lofty philosophical
vision of Sagittarius, enjoining this rather playful and freedom loving individual to greater social
responsibility and commitment. In turn Sagittarius can free Gemini from its mind webs, awaken
Libra from its excessive social propriety, lighten up Aquarius to a more celebrative enjoyment of
the social field.

With fire and earth, inspiration and personal freedom meet mundanity and practical commitment. Sagittarius shakes, yet at best inspires Taurus out of its secure and comfortable complacency and simple patterns: jars, but hopefully awakens Virgo from its excessive fussing
over logistical details and "right" actions: challenges and ideally teaches Capricorn a less controlling and more visionary and intuitive way of "managing" its world. In turn, Taurus teaches stability, simplicity and groundedness. Virgo reminds Sagittarius that actualizing inspirations
requires mindfulness and attention to detail. Capricorn shows that vision, insight and inspiration
must be given practical form to be of use.

When Sagittarius, with the willful intensity and inspirational power of fire, meets the sensitive,
responsive yet self protective and quieter water signs, we witness a challenging situation calling
for greater sensitivity, inner depth, and personal connectedness in the Sagittarian and an
increased personal strength and assertive self expression in water. In response to Sagittarius,
Cancer can enlarge its sometimes parochial and family-based vision to include unknown yet
deepening dimensions. Scorpio can learn a more spontaneous expressivity and trust in human
nature. Pisces can express its innate wisdom and instinctual connectedness in creatively inspiring
and powerful ways. In turn, Cancer can nurture Sagittarius's deeper need for home, love and
commitment. Scorpio can deepen and strengthen the Sagittarian's inner being and instinctual
roots. Pisces can awaken sensitive concern and compassion in the spirit of Sagittarius's collective
participation.

What Capricorn may lack in spontaneous warmth and self expression in the relationship arena, it surely makes up for with its reliability, sincerity and ability to make firm commitments. Serious, practical, self controlled, on purpose, and despite its reserve and general introversion, Capricorn is strongly attuned to the public good and to social responsibility. While driven by a need for accomplishment, this rather ambitious, managerial and competent sign is at home in the functional, productive and institutional life of society.

In any relationship, Capricorn needs to find its function, its concrete purpose. Sitting around expressing feelings, verbalizing its hopes and dreams, or just plain gossiping are not its preferred modes of interpersonal exchange. Capricorn likes to handle things, including its own feelings and reactions -- very socialized and behaviorally mature but it may tend to be somewhat emotionally self repressive. A little more trust, openness, personal sharing, and imaginative attunement to feelings and instincts can go a long way in enriching relationships.

In relation to the other earth signs, Capricorn shares a no-nonsense, practical, down-to-earth approach to life, but also a love of the earth and the sorts of pleasures that the earth gives when one knows how to operate according to her laws. Capricorn can help Taurus dedicate his instinctual attunements and productivity to goals larger than personal needs and sensual delights and can open Virgo to the larger managerial perspectives and the power that comes with earth level mastery. In turn, Taurus can offer the overly serious and high achieving Capricorn a lesson in relaxation and the personal enjoyment of the fruits of one's labour, while Virgo can give some lessons in conscientious humility and the need for personal self improvement in order to balance the outwardly-directed drive for control and success.

With the water signs, this sometimes rather dour but dependable and solid Saturn-ruled sign, gives the shape and grounding for water's emotions and irrational moods while receiving the emotional nurturance it cannot provide for itself. With Cancer, Capricorn (the traditional provider/father) teaches strength, self control, and firmness, while Cancer (the traditional homemaker/mother) opens Capricorn to his nurturing and caring instincts. To Scorpio, Capricorn brings responsible self restraint and a rational control of the lesser passions, while Scorpio awakens creative passion and depth in the overly conventional Capricorn. To Pisces, Capricorn gives its focus, framework, consistency and strength while Pisces in turn helps Capricorn to dedicate its indefatigable energy and accomplishments to that ineffable dimension of human connectedness beyond the concrete world.

To the air signs, Capricorn brings its realism and practical know-how giving real and concrete form to air's mentally lofty ideas and ideals. To the mentally excited and restless Gemini, Capricorn can bring focus and commitment, real frameworks to shape and contain the creative dance of mind. In turn, Gemini can inspire the careful, deliberate, and austerely rational Capricorn to a more open flow and free play of ideas. Capricorn helps focus the indecision of Libra, cutting through accommodation and compromise, while Libra softens and personalizes the starkly beautiful yet rather coldly functional patterns of Capricorn. Aquarius needs the technological and managerial capacities of realistic Capricorn to actualize its social ideals, while Capricorn needs the vision and critical distance of Aquarius to challenge its often entrenched conservatism.

The combination of Capricorn with the fire signs can be productive if the personal intensity of fire's vision and its need for self expression can accept the restraints of self discipline and realism; and if Capricorn in its masterful practicality can refrain from disdainfully squashing the "irrational" expressions of fire. Capricorn teaches Aries self restraint and the acknowledgement of tradition; demonstrates to Leo the need for effort and team work for personal success; guides Sagittarius toward a firm ground for its inspirations. In turn, Capricorn can learn courage, originality and independence from Aries, personal flair and self expression from Leo, and, from Sagittarius, a purity of vision, untouched by institutional conventions.

Whether socially outgoing, fiercely individualistic, introverted, or eccentric, Aquarians carry the life of the community, the human family, in their blood. Their personal identity, sense of meaning, purpose and empowerment is tied in with their understanding of, and creative reforming participation in, society. Since society is always in a mess and not especially responsive to reason, logic or idealism, this can make for difficulties ~ but their strong and often progressive ideals, their often righteous dissatisfaction with the status quo, their sense of justice and fairness, their demand for democratic consensus and co-operation provides them with the fuel for vigorous social contribution. But on the close, personal, emotional, intimate and instinctual level it might not be so easy for them, or for you, in relationship to Aquarius. (And, remember that in reality no person is simply their sun sign!)

With the other air signs, ideas, ideals, the whole realm of the social and the verbal, can be shared in a culturally and mentally stimulating environment. Aquarius gives to abstract and curious Gemini a larger and more socially responsible perspective while Libra can gain a more cool, less personal, and more detached view on things. In turn, Gemini can test the depth of Aquarius's idealist convictions or slogans while Libra can open Aquarius to the personal one-to-one.

With the fire signs, Aquarius brings cool reason and a sense of responsibility beyond the needs of self expression and personal fulfillment, while fire can inspire and excite Aquarius to put its ideas and principles into action. Aries helps Aquarius get in touch with its instinctual needs and drives independent of the group, while Leo brings a reminder that enlightened leadership is as necessary as consensus. Philosophically enthusiastic Sagittarius inspires Aquarius to actualize social visions. In turn, Aquarius orients Aries to look out beyond itself; reminds Leo of its place within the group; tempers Sagittarius's expansiveness with responsible social activist work.

Air along with the earth signs symbolizes the connection of ideas and theoretical knowledge with the spirit of pragmatism which is more concerned with what works than with what is ideal or "true". Aquarius may awaken Taurus from its complacency about larger social and cultural issues; may turn Virgo's talents for detail toward larger projects; encourage managerially conservative Capricorn to open to wider viewpoints. Taurus, with its 'taking care of business' within the personal sphere, may grate but may bring Aquarius down to earth to attend to the very necessary personal material foundations. Virgo will inform Aquarius of the necessary logistical level of earthly detail, the technical challenges involved in realizing any lofty scheme. Capricorn will remind Aquarius not to forget its roots in tradition, to 'build upon' rather than to dismantle.

Air and water, that funny old mix which must struggle in its communications beyond the contraries of thinking and feeling, reason and felt intuition, means that Aquarius reminds Cancer of the human family beyond the blood ties,; exhorts Scorpio to rise above the "swamp" of lesser human passions to the 'light of reason'; encourages Pisces to express its compassion and connectedness in 'good works' in order to 'improve' society. In turn, Cancer demands that Aquarius attune to its feelings, its instinctual connection to family and loved ones who come first; Scorpio goads Aquarius out of its pretentious ivory tower to confront its shadowy all-too-human underbelly; Pisces prayerfully speaks to Aquarius of a deeper nature of things beyond its hopes and schemes for an earthly utopia.

Pisces is perhaps the most sensitive, emotionally vulnerable and empathic of all the water signs, acting as a sensitive medium reflecting the subtle emotional undercurrents of others, rather than as a distinct individual intent on realizing his or her own agendas. Lacking the usual protective boundaries which define the difference between you and me, Pisceans are often psychically attuned, yet need to learn how to define their own edges in order to discover who they are as unique individuals, what it is they need to be doing rather than just reflecting others, and also to avoid being overwhelmed or drained by the emotional force and impact of the other.

By temperament, they are poetic, imaginative and often musical. At best they must learn how to become an open channel for the creative forces flowing back and forth connecting the hearts and minds of those in communion with one another.

With the other Water signs, Pisces swims in the great ocean of life, but there is a mutual need to avoid drowning in the non-rational sensitive feeling realms. Pisces can lead Scorpio to a more trusting, forgiving and compassionate way of relating; can awaken Cancer to a less intensely personal and attached relationship to loved ones, to open in faith to the larger human family. In turn, Scorpio can teach Pisces strength and courage, while Cancer can show the need for self protective boundaries, clear focus and intention.

With the Earth signs, the unshaped fluid potential of Pisces is given shape and a container, while earth is opened to the sensitive feelings that lie just beneath the surface of it's matter-of-fact self control. Pisces can stimulate Taurus to a wider imaginative vision and sense of natural connectedness; can melt the rather hard edges of Virgo's restrictive exactitude; can awaken the heartfulness within the rather authoritatively austere Capricorn. From the other side, Taurus gives Pisces that solid inner foundation and groundedness in body and nature. Virgo awakens Pisces to the necessity of concretely manifesting it's complex subtle ideas and intuitions, while Capricorn teaches a masterful strength which Pisces will need to operate within the larger world of others.

As for Pisces and the Air signs, watery feelings in their most subtle form encounter ideas and words, which in their seeking to categorize the ineffable, may often offend and limit the Piscean's imagination. Through Pisces, Gemini is awakened to the poetry and emotion woven into the fabric of its concepts, words and ideas. Libra, under the Piscean spell, can awaken to the hearfulness found in relationship beyond its romanticized visions. And Aquarius can finally transcend its attachment to the ideal way things should be and move toward the deep acceptance of things as they are and faith in the unfolding Tao. And, with the Air signs, Pisces can learn to articulate through Gemini, to communicate through Libra and, through Aquarius to actively participate in the life of the world.

With the Fire signs, emotional intensity and creative flair can inspire creativity in Pisces, but sometimes overwhelm it's sensitive vulnerability. Pisces can lead the bluntly assertive Aries to a more attuned way of acting in the world, can teach Leo a less self-centered way of creating, and can bring humility and spirituality to Sagittarius' lofty visions. On the other hand, Aries can teach Pisces how to set goals with focus and drive, while Leo can show the need for even Pisces to find its unique mode of creativity. And finally, Sagittarius can offer Pisces a sense of purposeful destination for its sometimes amorphous visionary meanderings.